As of today, for the first time in 3 years, 8 months, and 4 days, I’m going to be living with someone. A friend of mine, Ness, who’s just ended a relationship is going to be moving in.
Funnily enough, we’ve lived together before. Back in my final year (1996/97) at university in South Wales, we shared a house along with three other students. I lost touch with Ness shortly after I left university, but I learnt in August that she and her (now)ex had moved to Sheffield. It’s going to be weird living with someone again after all this time.

Very odd sight on the tram this morning - a guy with cropped light brown hair, completely normal save for the stencilled rose painted in bright red onto the hair on the back of his head. Very pretty, but sport support gone to extremes? It certainly caught my eye, and from the occasional stares of other passengers on the tram, I wasn’t the only one.

If you ever wanted to get in the mood for Christmas, Love Actually is the movie to go see. Brit flick rom com set in the 5-week run-up to Christmas, and amazingly funny. Don’t bother counting the number of British actors (there’s far too many to name), just sit back and enjoy.

Realised on the way there that it’s far too cold tonight to be cycling, especially when my bike lights were badly in need of batteries. On the way back, I thought I’d conserve them for the darker parts of the journey. My route back takes me around Sheffield Arena (now formally known as the Hallam FM Arena, apparently). All the lights were blazing as I cycled across the road to it, so I turned off my bike lights. The second I reached the forecourt, all the lights went out. I almost came a cropper on a kerb. Good thing I know the route back well, especially as my lights finally gave out going round the stadium!

In other news - been helping a friend get through a difficult time, sorting myself out (long overdue) pre-Christmas, getting into the spirit of things now Bonfire Night has come and gone (lingering fireworks in the evening exploding heart-attackingly close to my bedroom window notwithstanding), agonising over the increasing need to think up and buy Christmas presents, working at the theatre and managing to break two glasses in one shift, wistfully looking forward to being able to leave work in daylight again, talking lots online to Rob, nostalgia-tripping with old uni friend Ness, window-shopping, trying to think what I want for Christmas after being prompted for a list by mom, remembering just in time that it’s my brother’s 25th birthday on Tuesday, finally replacing the lightbulbs in the hall, landing and spare bedroom, contemplating getting highlights…and 101 other things.
Life is good.

It’s been a long time since I posted. It’s not so much because I don’t have anything to talk about - I do, but it’s not stuff I want to publicly write about. Instead, I’ve been doing a lot of writing, with that old nostalgic implement, the pen, and a little pink book. I hadn’t written in that way regularly since I kept a proper diary, many years ago now, and mostly in an angst-ridden teenage way. It’s good to get down what I’m thinking about, in my own stream of consciousness meandering way. I think I needed that catharsis. I’ll be continuing to write to myself when I need to, and perhaps even more often than I post on here - but I am around. And after all, my site is something for me to update when I want to, not as an obligation. I think in the past I wasn’t fully getting to grips with that.
That said, I’ll be posting soon. Yes, really.